1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for measuring both the formation stages of geothermal heat storage layers for evaluating thermal head development areas and the geological ages of volcanic rocks by measuring the absorption spectrum characteristics of the zirconium included in the volcanic rocks by means of a colorimeter for the samples of new volcanic rocks from geological viewpoints.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Zirconium is a mineral as one of the by-constituents widely contained in volcanic rocks and its color as well as its crystal habits varies in various ways. It is known that the colors of zirconium vary with the respective geological ages.
Up to this time, the geological ages of volcanic rocks have been evaluated by means of radioisotope contrast measurement with a mass spectrometer and fission track method by counting the track of spontaneous fission fragments. However, the colorimeter for measuring the absorption spectrum characteristics of zirconium is commercially available, but there is no available zirconium color measurement apparatus equipped with the age measurement calibration curve of the relation between the colors of zirconium and its corresponding geological ages.
In case of the conventional colorimeters, they are not equipped with the calibration curve which shows the relation between the colors of zirconium and its geological ages, and therefore, the measurements of geological ages cannot be done by them. In addition, the conventional measurement method for ages necessitates some expensive large instruments such as mass spectrometer and nuclear reactor and further the special technique for handling large analyzing instruments. Furthermore, it takes a long time to pretreat and measure samples and as a result, it takes many days to get the measured results for geological ages.